SAUNDERS: Inside wonderful world of ACORN

I would not go see the film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of
America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" because I
found more cruelty than humor in deliberately exposing unwitting
civilians to the easy ridicule of smug sophomores.

Now the right has its own Borat-style entertainment. Equipped
with a video camera, conservative activists James O'Keefe, 25, and
Hannah Giles, 20, sought the answer to this question: "What if a
'prostitute' and her alleged law school boyfriend walk into ACORN
seeking housing for an underage brothel to fund his future
congressional campaign?"

The answer, they discovered, was that some of the folks who work
at ACORN (the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations
for Reform Now) were overly adept at looking the other way ----
even after O'Keefe and Giles told them that Salvadoran girls as
young as 12 would be working as prostitutes in their brothel.

One ACORN worker told the couple they could list the under-aged
prostitutes as dependents "because they live in your house,
especially if they're under 16." Some organizers emphasized that it
was not their job to judge others. A Baltimore worker tried to sign
up the couple as dues-paying ACORN members.

ACORN has reacted by charging that the videotapes were
"doctored" and charged O'Keefe and Giles with trolling for damning
material. ACORN also claims the couple is not airing tape from
offices where they were shown the door. The Philadelphia Daily
News, for example, reported that the local ACORN office kicked out
O'Keefe and Giles and filed a police report.

On Saturday, ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis said in a
statement that she would not defend actions of the now-fired
workers. She also charged that O'Keefe and Giles broke the law ----
"and we will be taking legal action against Fox (News) and their
co-conspirators."

But what of CNN and other new organizations that have reported
on this story? The prank is paying off. On Sept. 11, U.S. Census
director Robert M. Groves terminated the bureau's (nonpaying)
partnership agreement with ACORN.

This is progress. As recently as March, however, the Senate
tabled an amendment banning federal funding for ACORN ---- which
has received $53 million directly from Uncle Sam since 1994 ----
despite several state investigations into ACORN voter registration.
Last year, ACORN was forced to acknowledge that election officials
rejected 400,000 of the 1.3 million people the group had tried to
register.

Congress should pass a measure ending federal funding for ACORN,
and President Obama, who represented ACORN in a 1995 lawsuit,
should sign it.

But I won't join those who are hailing the enterprising O'Keefe
and Giles for doing the sort of work "60 Minutes" should have done.
But there was so little fact-checking in this exercise that Fox
News' Glenn Beck ran a video in which a San Bernardino ACORN
organizer said she had killed her husband ---- when she had
not.

Conservatives, beware. Any activist can grab a camera, head for
a church or a campaign, and record some stupid quotes. When they do
---- and they will ---- the right will complain that it is wrong to
brand a cause by the careless comments of a handful of
disciples.

DEBRA J. SAUNDERS writes for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Comment online at nctimes.com or contact her at
dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.